So many theories about education look great on the page, but what happens when they’re introduced into schools is another matter. As publishers, one of the most satisfying things for us is to see our material getting results in real schools, making a positive difference to real children.

That’s why Active Questioning Plus is an exciting publication for us – and for you as well, we hope. David Turner, the author of our popular title Active Questioning, was able to spend some time with the teachers and leaders in a school as they adopted and adapted his techniques. The result is a video case study that we’ve added to the original publication to create Active Questioning Plus.

The school’s results were impressive: in a community where every single child spoke English as a second language, pupils were giving long, complex and articulate answers to the questions they were asked in class, and showed a parallel improvement in their written work.

What are these techniques? You can see an example in the video below:

Simply put, you get better answers from children by telling them what you want. If you want an answer of a certain length, or containing a certain number of reasons, or any other impressive feature, David has found that if you ask the children to give it to you then they will. Active Questioning tells you how to do this, and make sure you give children the time and support they need to give you what you are asking for.

Active Questioning has a lot of the ingredients of really effective CPD: it’s specific, it’s practical, it’s relevant to all teachers and teaching assistants, and it can make an immediate difference in the classroom. If you’d like to find out more, see the pages for Active Questioning Plus and Active Questioning in our catalogue.

Active Questioning is going to be coming to nimbl soon as well, so watch this space.